White-collar Crime Seldom A Long-term Black Mark

Businessmen who get busted for white-collar crime find it easier to bounce back than other types of professionals who run afoul of the law, a sociologist says.

And though powerful financiers such as Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken generate national news stories, the typical white-collar offender is different, said Michael Benson, professor of sociology at the University of Tennessee.

``The vast majority of white-collar crime is committed by middle-class people,`` Benson said. ``What I found was how ordinary and mundane most offenses really are.``

White-collar crime spans from financial crimes such as bank embezzlement and wire fraud to boiler-room sales operations to providing false information on a bank-loan application.

Environmental crime, such as when companies illegally dump hazardous waste rather than pay to have it disposed of properly, is a growing segment of white-collar crime, said William E. Baugh Jr., special agent in charge of the FBI`s Knoxville field office.

Benson wrote his doctoral dissertation on white-collar crime and interviewed convicted white-collar criminals in the Chicago area and their probation officers. He was trying to find out how the white-collar offender deals with imprisonment and its related consequences, such as loss of job and status.

He divided the subjects into two groups: offenders who held public-sector jobs, on a government payroll or pubicly licensed ones, such as doctors, lawyers and engineers; and those in the private sector, such as salesmen and executives.

``The people in the public sector are much more likely to lose their jobs,`` Benson said. ``They fall further, and they don`t climb back as fast as the others.``

One reason is obvious. Professionally licensed people or government officials who breach the public trust lose their licenses or jobs and typically cannot work in their fields again.

By contrast, a businessman in the private sector has a better chance of picking up the pieces and finding new work, Benson said.

The sociologist, however, suggests other reasons private businessmen may fare better after getting out of jail.

``People at higher levels may commit crimes which are either for the organization they are a part of or that at least don`t victimize the organization,`` he said.

An example of this type of criminal would be a high-level executive who gets together with his competitors in a price-fixing scheme.

His colleagues in the business world might think, ``There but for the grace of God go I,`` and thus be more tolerant, Benson said.

``It`s my view that businessmen are very adept at shifting the blame to the government and regulatory agencies and away from themselves,`` he added.

Businessmen sometimes can use connections to get re-established. They also are more likely to move to new cities and use their administrative or sales skills to start over, the FBI`s Baugh said.

Benson described several types of white-collar criminals.

Some are aggressive, with ``very flexible`` or no ethical standards.

Others are lazy and incompetent. ``They take shortcuts, but it`s not so much out of aggressiveness but out of laziness.``

A third type is a basically clean businessman-until he faces pressure.